Archives / July 2017

The Libertinis’ “Nite Skool,” performed at the Annex Theatre, is a hilarious, raunchy comedy show with a social conscience. It takes on the aesthetic of the after-school-special era of teen sitcoms, but the subjects it tackles are anything but dated. “Nite Skool” aims to both make you laugh and challenge widely-held beliefs perpetuated by schools, and it usually succeeds.

“Nite Skool,” written by Max Kirchner and the ensemble, opens with a woman realizing she is unprepared for the realities of adult life. She decides to go to Nite Skool [sic] to “fill her knowledge holes.” The show takes us through a school day (night?), using each “class” to tackle a social issue and/or tell jokes that would have definitely gotten you sent out in the hallway…

Poor old Aegean is in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’s from Syracuse and his kind are not wanted in the land of Ephesus at the time. As director David Gassner points out in his notes, Aegean (played by seasoned pro David S. Klein) can be seen as an Elizabethan “undocumented alien,” a […]

Off Road Shakespeare’s (ORS) free outdoor production of Romeo and Juliet makes full use of Red Square’s unintended stages. The ensemble performs the play, and the audience sets the cast! Right at 4 PM, Leah Adcock-Starr, director and artistic executive for ORS, playfully yet skillfully gets audience members to step up to the hat of chance […]

Taproot Theatre has taken on a major challenge offering up the world premiere of a musical version of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. The work was initially work-shopped through a new play festival at the 5th Ave. Director Karen Lund and her cast have been fine-tuning the production with book writer Harold Taw and music composer Chris […]

While not the most familiar play to roll off people’s tongues, Much Ado, once viewed will hold a special place in your – “Oh how I love Shakespeare” corner of your heart. Much Ado is at once a comedy of errors, a love story, a near tragedy and a giant battle of gendered wits.

Shakespeare’s Pericles in the park was not what I expected and that turned out to be a good thing. Having never read Pericles, I cheated and read the cliff-notes version. This is one of Shakespeare’s more obscure plays and the plot has the quality of a telenovela with all the outlandish side stories, plot […]

Whenever I think of OSF’s location in tiny Ashland, at the very bottom of Oregon, I shake my head in bewilderment. No way can a venue, miles and miles from any significant cosmopolitan locale, garner the quality and magic that this organization continually generates. Yet they do; they most certainly do. This spring, my colleague […]